A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Wednesday 31 January 2018

18th Century Fair to take place this weekend


Membership fees for joining the Bucksnort Long­hun­ters are $25 for individuals and $35 for families. For information on the club or this weekend’s event, call 270-369-6129.
“We’re always looking for new members,” Hill said.
The fair is from noon to 6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets are $3 and concessions are available.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/news/local/th-century-fair-to-take-place-this-weekend/article_4fb76c41-f1ff-5051-9781-4dc51275c66a.html



Tuesday 30 January 2018

The Pirate Empire: Pirate Nests

The Pirate Empire: Pirate Nests: The image of a pirate haunt – or pirate nest, as they were sometimes called by royal authorities and customs officials, calls up images of ...

Knapping Glass Arrow Heads.





I have as yet not researched this, but thought it interesting enough to post here. There certainly was glass available in the 18th century.

Keith.

17C American Women: Dwindling Native Americans in North America

17C American Women: Dwindling Native Americans in North America: After Columbus’s landfall in 1492, the Native American peoples were nearly extinguished mostly from disease. More native North Americans die...

Saturday 20 January 2018

17C American Women: 1668 - Journal of Connecticut farmer Thomas Minor ...

17C American Women: 1668 - Journal of Connecticut farmer Thomas Minor ...: A Year in the Life of Thomas Minor, Connecticut Farmer, 1668. Thomas Minor (1608-1690) was born in England & sailed to New England in ...

Pirate Events Calendar.

Gentlemen Of Fortune group USA.


The Pirate Empire: Fire Ship!

The Pirate Empire: Fire Ship!: The Golden Age of Piracy was a time of wooden ships- wooden ships, held together with tar, and waterproofed with pitch. They were floating ...

The Pirate Empire: Libertalia - The Pirate Utopia

The Pirate Empire: Libertalia - The Pirate Utopia: As I have mentioned before, Golden Age pirates were pirates with a purpose. The piratical call of “Freedom!” has been preserved through the...

The Pirate Empire: The Whores of Old Port Royal

The Pirate Empire: The Whores of Old Port Royal: In the days of Captain Morgan – yes, that red-coated fellow on the rum bottle – Port Royal was officially the Wickedest City on Earth. Not ...

The Pirate Empire: The Port Royal Earthquake

The Pirate Empire: The Port Royal Earthquake: So many things about Pirates are uncertain. Even the dates of the Golden Age of Piracy are open to debate. Some people say that the era end...

17C American Women: 1668 - Journal of Connecticut farmer Thomas Minor ...

17C American Women: 1668 - Journal of Connecticut farmer Thomas Minor ...: A Year in the Life of Thomas Minor, Connecticut Farmer, 1668. Thomas Minor (1608-1690) was born in England & sailed to New England in ...

Thursday 18 January 2018

Tuesday 16 January 2018

1677 Revenge of Marblehead, MA Women on Native Americans



17C American Women: 1677 Revenge of Marblehead, MA Women on Native Ame...: Robert Roule, Deposition, MS 252 , Edward E. Ayer Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Depiction of Metacomet, also known...

17C American Women: 1677 Revenge of Marblehead, MA Women on Native Ame...

17C American Women: 1677 Revenge of Marblehead, MA Women on Native Ame...: Robert Roule, Deposition, MS 252 , Edward E. Ayer Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Depiction of Metacomet, also known...

17C American Women: 1677 Revenge of Marblehead, MA Women on Native Ame...

17C American Women: 1677 Revenge of Marblehead, MA Women on Native Ame...: Robert Roule, Deposition, MS 252 , Edward E. Ayer Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Depiction of Metacomet, also known...

A Link to more flintlock videos.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNRmiJFD11NKJXX_xjJTQkcQwjabe9DPx

Meet 18th-Century Fur Traders At Louis Joliet Mall


Come meet Forest Preserve District of Will County interpretive naturalists as they portray Shishibe and Sylvie, French fur traders who lived among the Potawatomi tribe in Illinois Country. The “Voyage Through Time” program will be held from 12-3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20th, in Carson’s Court at the Louis Joliet Mall, 3340 Mall Loop Drive, Joliet. 

Saturday 13 January 2018

A Sensible Option For Self Defence in Australia.





.410 shot shell handgun, single shot. A sensible option for self defence in Australia. If the government are worried about mass shootings, this is the answer. Citizens with the correct screening & training should be allowed to defend themselves & their families.

Friday 12 January 2018

Please Sign This Petition.

This is a sawn-off pump action Breech-Loading shotgun seized by police from criminals, this is what criminals use. They do NOT use black powder muzzle-loading pistols. So why are flintlocks, wheellocks & matchlocks on a restrictive firearms licence? Either it is because of sheer ignorance, or they simply could not be bothered to distinguish a muzzle-loading pistol from a modern breech-loading pistol when they drafted the legislation.

Please sign my petition asking the government to take primitive muzzle-loading pistols off the restrictive H class licence & place them with other muzzle-loading guns on the less restrictive B class licence.
Thank you.
Keith.

This is a matchlock muzzle-loading pistol, it requires a smouldering matchcord to make it fire.
This is a wheellock muzzle-loading pistol, it requires a key to wind up the lock, & a piece of iron pyrite rock to make it fire.
This is the most sophisticated of the muzzle-loading pistols that I want removing from the H class licence. This is a flintlock, it requires a piece of hard rock clamped in the jaws of the cock to make it fire. All three of these pistols require black powder & only black powder to be placed in the pan & down the muzzle of the barrel to make them fire. None of these pistols is capable of firing modern cartridge ammunition.

How smart are you? Smarter than the average law maker? Do you think that in this day & age a criminal would even know how to use one of these guns let alone bother when they can easily access a modern gun?



Thursday 11 January 2018

18th Century Angling. Hand lines & fishing poles.

Below: 17th & 18th century Fishing poles with fixed lines.
You will note that these fixed lines were often very short, the pole being used to drop the line away from the bank.






Below: Hand lines tied on bush poles 19th century.

Below:18th Century hand lines.













Hand Line Fishing 17th & 18th Century.




ISLAND CARIB FISHING TECHNIQUES6 French observers of the 17th and 18th centuries, including some excellent anglers, unanimously admired the fishing skills of the Island Caribs. These Indians, who expertly sought out productive banks and deeps (Breton 1665: 131- 132 S.V. chbbi, 355 S.V. minroua), even had a word translatable only as ‘(reproach to a man who does not know how to fish” (Breton 1665: 59 S.V. miticati. oue). Island Caribs frequently fished with handlines from their dugout canoes.


As you can see from above, period paintings of inland fishing always show the use of fixed lines on poles. However, it is evident that there were hand lines in use in the 18th century & earlier, in fact this method is probably one of the oldest methods of fishing. Travellers are not likely to have carried poles with them, these poles with fixed lines were used by city & towns people. Travellers could either use a hand line as is, or they had the option of cutting a pole & tying the hand line to the end of the pole. Hand lines can also be used as fixed lines, hanging from a tree branch & left overnight.

Author's hand lines & spare hooks.

18th-Century Kitchen Features Uncovered at Monticello





Tuesday 9 January 2018

Petition To Have Muzzle Loading Pistols Removed From an H class licence ...



"To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales in Parliament assembled".
PARLIAMENT OF NEW SOUTH WALES.
Parliament House
6 Macquarie Street,
Sydney, NSW 2000.
The Petition of Keith H. Burgess.
President of the New England Colonial Living History Group.
Brings to the attention of the House the matter of firearms licensing in relation to muzzle-loading pistols (percussion locks excluded).
At this present time, working replica (replicas of original 17th and 18th century antique muzzle-loading pistols) muzzle-loading pistols of the lock types matchlock, wheellock, tinderlock, doglock, snaphance, and flintlock can only be owned by a person possessing a category H gun licence, and these pistols can only be legally fired on a registered gun range. Antique muzzle-loading pistols of the same type may be owned, but not used/fired without the owner possessing an H class licence. This requirement excludes the use of these antiques & antique replicas for Living History and Historical Re-enactment purposes. It also excludes the use of these antique replicas for use as a back-up safety for muzzle-loader hunters hunting on private property who are hunting with single shot muzzle-loading rifles or smoothbores.
Historical Re-enactment groups and Living History organisations have re-enactment rules which preclude the use of live ammunition and preclude the use of a ramrod during any and all re-enactment displays. There is also a permit requirement; this permit is for historical re-enactment organisations wishing to conduct an historical re-enactment event involving the possession and use of firearms by participants. Clause 61 - Firearms Regulation 2006.
Replicas of muzzle-loading pistols of the lock types mentioned are single shot (though some flintlocks can have two barrels), slow to load and require a good deal of knowledge and training to ensure the workability of this type of gun. Ignition even when used by a competent person can not be guaranteed. Therefore these muzzle-loading guns are not suitable for criminal use.
We fully understand the purpose of the H class licence requirements, but these primitive muzzle-loading pistols are not the same as modern breech-loaders, revolvers or semi-automatics. If a criminal wishes to use a concealable gun to commit a crime, they can simply cut down a modern breech-loading rifle or shotgun.
At present anyone can purchase an antique muzzle-loading pistol without the need to apply for a permit to purchase, a licence or registration. However, they cannot be legally fired/used unless the owner posesses an H class licence. These replica muzzle-loading pistols are no different from the antiques, their workings, capabilities & disabilities are exactly the same.


The undersigned petitioners therefore ask the Legislative Assembly to change the licensing requirement for these replica antique & antique muzzle-loading pistols (percussion locks excluded) from the present category H class licence to the category B class licence. Alternately we respectfully request that these muzzle-loading pistols be placed on a new less restrictive class of firearms licence , allowing these guns to be used with no more restrictions than are presently placed on muzzle-loading long arms.
Sincerely,

Keith H. Burgess.

Petition Here: https://www.change.org/p/to-the-honourable-the-speaker-and-members-of-the-legislative-assembly-of-new-south-wales-in-parliam-muzzle-loading-pistols-to-be-placed-on-a-less-restrictive-licence

Monday 8 January 2018

Saturday 6 January 2018

Queen Anne's Revenge Honolulu Drydock





Terrible to see how this great ship has been neglected & allowed to deteriorate. Should be a law against it!!!

Keith.

PS Addition from Laura.

Blogger Laura said...
This isn't the original - the original ship, Blackbeard's ship, is a wreck outside Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. They've been recovering cannon from her as well as other artifacts. I actually remember when the National Geographic Society announced they'd recovered cannon back in 2013.

So, never fear! This replica is most likely something commissioned for Pirates of the Caribbean. :)

17th Century in England

Printed Paper Found In Blackbeard's Cannon. 1718 ad.


Image: Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

"The researchers found 16 tiny fragments of paper in a mass of wet sludge crammed inside the chamber of a breech-loading cannon (how it got there is anyone's guess)". I very much doubt that this writer can tell the difference between a breech-loader & a muzzle-loader cannon!
The first modern breech-loading rifled gun is a breech-loader invented by Martin von Wahrendorff with a cylindrical breech plug secured by a horizontal wedge in 1837. In the 1850s and 1860s, Whitworth and Armstrong invented improved breech loading artillery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_weapon#Artillery
The main focus of this article is on what pirates used to read aboard ship, where as I am more interested in the fact that they were using printed paper as wadding in the cannons.